The Truth about "Coke is Bad for You"
Introduction
One popular modern myth about Coca Cola is that it can dissolve
a piece of meat overnight. To falsify this claim, I have conducted an
experiment with the following setup: One piece of fresh, cooked ham was
placed in a glass of diet coke, a second piece from the same chunk was
put in a glass of sparkling water. This setting was kept at room temperature
on my window seat for three weeks.
Result study
Surprisingly, the coke-meat piece can still be recognized after the full
investigation time period has elapsed. It has absorbed much of the brownish
color from the beverage but preserved its structural integrity to such an
extend that it can entirely be raised from its embedding liquid with a pair of
tweezers without falling apart (last image). Not so for its twin piece, which
has largely disintegrated and could not be retrieved wholy. Both liquids tend
to become opaque as time passes. Note the occurence of mildew spots present
on the coke surface, while the water surface is clearly void of them.
Summary
While there was indeed severe interaction between the coke medium and the
organic tissue sample, the claims of coke "dissolving meat overnight" can
clearly be refutet on the grounds of the investigations presented here.
The disintegration process proceeds at even slower pace compared to the
neutral water environment, and is indeed in accordance with what can be
expected for such settings. Note in particular that consumed food does not
stay inside the human digestive tract for more than a few hours, a time span
to be considered very small against the scale of this experiment.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Nicole for suggesting this nice project to me.
Sequence of images (the larger versions are gone. Sorry!)
